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6.04.2015

Living out here in the cornfield for nigh about four years
has made me believe I am something of a pioneer, and as a pioneer, I like to do
pioneer-y, nature-y things. Mostly these pioneer-y, nature-y things consist of
sitting in my comfy sunroom with a cup of coffee, looking out at the yard and
the garden my husband has planted. Such a homesteader! But sometimes I flex my
homesteading muscles in other ways: I sit on the stump stools my husband has
honed out of fallen logs; I take my children horseback riding at nearby stables
that are thankfully so nearby that I can go home and get away from the stink
while they ride; and I have in fact gone ice skating on a frozen pond. Pioneer! And
sometimes, me and my friend Andrea decide that we want to pickle asparagus, but
the asparagus must be wild and must be foraged by hand, by us.

So sometimes (one time), I go ditching.

What do you mean you don’t know what ditching is? Pfffft.
City dwellers.

Ditching is where you go foraging for wild asparagus in the ditches beside country roads, obvi. Yes, I just heard of it. Yes, I
decided I had to do it. Just call me Ma Ingalls. So me and Andrea lit out
bright and early Monday morning to go ditching.

Andrea showed up at my house in grubby sweats and sneakers.
“Let’s go, sunshine!” Her usual call to action for me. I was ready. Well, as
soon as I got dressed, ate a banana, talked to my sister on the phone for a bit
and found my keys/sunglasses/wallet/kitchen scissors/gum.

“Wait,” I said as I slipped on my Hunters, “you have boots
in the car, right?”

“No, I have these,” said Andrea. She lifted a leg and
displayed her sneaks. “Um, no. We’re going ditching. In ditches. It’s rained
for three days. Hang on – “ I went downstairs and returned with Chris’s size 10
Wellingtons. “Ok,” I said, “let’s go!”

Andrea put on Chris’s gigantic boots and tried not to fall
down my front steps. “Better wear the sneakers to drive," I suggest.

We get to the end of my driveway when I warn Andrea that I
will need a coffee. “Ok, no problem,” she says. We turn off my street and head
out of town. Tim Hortons is approaching on the left. “Coffee! Coffee! Coffee!”
I yell. “What, now?” Andrea asks. “Yes, now!” Hard left and we swerve into the
drive-through. Phew. Close one.

I have my coffee in hand and now we are really ready to go. “Ok, where are we going?” asks Andrea. “Highway
3,” I reply. “Ok, where’s highway 3?” I look at Andrea. “Um, haven’t you lived
here your whole entire life?”

“Yes.”

“Then why don’t you know where highway 3 is?”

“Do you know where highway 3 is?”

“No clue.”

“Ok, let’s just go this way. There are ditches everywhere.”

And off we go, trying to hit paved country roads that are
otherwise deserted, lest farm ladies get suspicious watching us wade through
ditches with our coffee in one hand and a pair of kitchen scissors in the
other.

Questions you should
try to answer before you go ditching:

What
kind of ditches does wild asparagus grow in – natural indentations at the side
of the road, or man-made drainage ditches?

What
does wild asparagus look like?

Does
wild asparagus propagate among less innocuous ditch-growing species, like
stinging nettles or giant hogweed?

Why
does every farm lady decide she must retrieve her mail as soon as you pull your
minivan over to look in the ditch for wild asparagus?

How
exactly does one plan on cutting and retrieving wild asparagus while holding a
coffee

Where
is highway 3?

“What’s this,” I ask, peering into the ditch. “Is this wild
asparagus?”

“I don’t know. Could be.”

“Or it could be something I am highly allergic to and/or is
deadly poisonous.” I pick it up anyway, sure it’s not something deadly
poisonous.

“Could be.”

I put it down.

Then we remember that we have one thing the pioneers never
had, and I google wild asparagus. Oh! It looks just like tame asparagus. I stop
touching plants that could be highly allergenic and/or deadly poisonous.
The good news is, we have definitely not found and dismissed any wild asparagus
plants. The bad news is, we have definitely not found any wild asparagus plants.
What is wrong with these ditches?

Andrea starts laughing. “What is it,” I ask.

“It’s you,” she says.

I look at me. Hunter boots, gap jeans, windbreaker, designer sunglasses, Tim
Hortons coffee and cell phone. Wading through a ditch, looking for asparagus. “I don’t see
what’s so funny,” I say, and jump back in her minivan. “Next ditch.”

We drive around for about half an hour more, encouraged by
our one discovery of a patch of something that Google tells us is wild
asparagus that had been left for so long it had gone to seed. Wild asparagus!
We found it!

“Remember where we are,” says Andrea, “for next year.”

“Ok,” I say. “Where the fuck are we?” (Thank you once again,
Google. Jesus, the pioneers had a tough life.)

Turns out we are nowhere even close to where I thought we
were, but that was ok. “Oh,” says Andrea, “we’re not too far from Parks Blueberries.
Maybe they have asparagus.”

“Let’s do it. It’s almost lunch time anyway, and I’m
starving.” So we head to Parks, a farm/country store/café, and I spend
$30 on lunch, some baked goods and a new scarf.

4.14.2015

Dove released a new videocampaign commercial.
After the initial emotional punch of the video, which shows women choosing
between doors marked “Average” or “Beautiful,” began to fade, the justifiably
critical responses began. Where is the door marked strong, or smart, asked
some viewers. Has Dove jumped the shark, asked some marketing pundits. Others
agreed that while the ad has its flaws, it was able to act as some sort of
important conversation starter.

What conversation is that, exactly? The conversation where
we discuss how (once again) we are manipulated by a very powerful
multi-national company made up of beauty and household brands into thinking
that our self-worth is tied into our looks?

Because Average or Beautiful, Dove wants us to think about
how we look, period. And Dove thinks that if we do not think we are beautiful,
by now, after all of their other campaigns assuring us we are beautiful,
buyourproductsplease, there must be something very goddamn wrong and sad about
us.

Know which door I would have walked through? Not the
beautiful one.

Do I think I’m beautiful? Not at all.

Am I bothered by that? Not at all.

Because you, or Dove, or my husband can say, fuck our
unrealistic and rigid standards of beauty, birthed by a corporate machine and
perpetuated by a society invested in preying on our insecurities, all you want.

I know what I am, and I’m not beautiful, by just about
anybody’s standards.

I know what I am. I’m lots and lots of things, both good and
bad. I am a woman. I am lots of things, and if beautiful is not one of those
things, if I am average, that’s not a sad, terrible fate to have to bravely face.

Last I checked, average was not synonymous with insecure,
failure, unloveable, or ugly, nor did beauty, inner or outer, solve any
problems other than selling soap.

Inner beauty has nothing to do with how I look, and outer
beauty is a trick of genetics and luck. Beauty is not in my lexicon. It doesn’t
have to be.

I can own average proudly. As a matter of fact, I think I
probably only hit average on a really, really good day. And I don’t give a
shit. I am happy with my life, I like who I am, I got the hot guy without ever
considering that I was punching above my weight. And on my worst day it has
never occurred to me that things would be better if only I thought I was
beautiful.

So Dove – I will happily and proudly walk through the door
that says Average, and do not tell me or any other woman that there is
something wrong with us for doing so.

And hey, Dove – there’s one other door I’d like to show you
to; it’s the one that’s marked, EXIT.